January 13, 2025 • 35 mins
Rick Older joins us to explore the systemic nature of chronic pain and how understanding interconnected body mechanics can lead to more effective solutions. We delve into practical tests and insights from his new book, "Pain Patterns," to help listeners identify their pain causes and pursue a holistic pathway to relief.
• Discussion on why Rick wrote his book Pain Patterns
• The significance of viewing the body as a system rather than isolated parts
• Insights on overlapping research in movement science, fascia, and neurophysiology
• Understanding the concept of functional linking and its role in chronic pain
• Importance of identifying pain patterns through simple self-assessments
• Conversation on spinal surgery as a last resort rather than first-line treatment
• Discussion on the creative approaches therapists can take in treatment
• Key takeaway for individuals suffering from chronic pain to assess their unique experiences
Learn More at: www.Redefine-Fitness.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello and welcome to Health and Fitness Redefined and
we got another great episodefor all of you.
Today we have a guest that'sbeen on the show about a year
ago, all the way out fromColorado.
So, without further ado, let'swelcome Rick.
Rick, it's a pleasure to haveyou.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Thanks a lot for having me, anthony, excited to
be here.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Excited to have you back on.
I know last time we were on wehad a 45 minute conversation.
It was nice in detail aboutpain.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
By my standards, even that's short, because I could
talk about this stuff for hours.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Well, I hope everyone goes back and listens to it and
really gets an understanding ofyour background.
Talk a little bit about youbeing I know we talked a little
bit about being a physical goesback and listens to it and
really gets an understanding ofyour background.
Talk a little bit about youbeing I know we talk a little
bit about you being a physicaltherapist and how you approach
things differently, so we'rejust going to jump right into it
.
Then it's a littleuntraditional, which I think is
fun.
All about your new book thatyou wrote, which is about being
pain-free it's something we liketalking a lot about on this
(01:02):
show is trying to figure outways to overcome commonality
issues such as lower back pain,sciatica, everything that kind
of falls with that.
So let's ask the firstquestions what made you want to
write the book?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah, well, you know, anthony, I sold my clinic a
couple of years ago and I'vebeen working under a non-compete
clause, so I can only seepeople via telehealth for three
years, and so I've been workingwith a lot of people and it
really, when I don't get to usemy hands, it really helps me
(01:35):
focus my message and visionabout what needs to happen with
somebody, and I need toarticulate that in a way and do
testing in a way that you knowperson.
So this, while it's the sameapproach I've been using for the
last 20, 25 years, this reallyhelped me hone my message as to
(01:57):
what exactly I was looking forto help these people remotely,
and so it clarified my message.
And then, at the same time, Ihave created a practitioner's
training program to help healthand wellness people do what I do
, and in that program there's a10-page neurophysiology paper I
wrote many years ago and Ithought you know what?
(02:20):
I think it's time for me justto flesh this out a little bit
more, maybe create a booklet outof it instead of just a little
10 page paper, and before I knewit it had become a book.
And so I combined this, thesetwo things that neurophysiology
10 page paper, together withwhat I've been doing these past
two years, honing my vision andmy my message to help these
(02:40):
people, and it's created thisnew book called pain patterns to
help these people.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
And it's created this new book called Pain Patterns.
I like it.
So it kind of was a work inprogress.
You didn't think was going tohappen and you just started
diving deeper and deeper intothe pigeonhole and you're like,
oh wow.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Yeah, that's exactly how it was.
I just woke up one morning.
I'm just like holy smokes.
I think I'm writing a new book.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
When did the book come out?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
It came out November 15th.
Oh, recently, awesome healthand wellness practitioner I've
talked to because I'm combiningelements of movement science,
(03:26):
fascia research andneurophysiology, which have all
three of these areas of research, have exposed similar patterns
of problems that we all face inthese areas of research, and it
turns out that there are threepatterns that overlap among all
three of these silos of science,and so typically what happens
(03:50):
with researchers is they stay intheir area of research, fascia
stays in fascia, physicaltherapy stays in physical
therapy and neurophysiologystays in neurophysiology.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
It's the saying you're going to hire a plumber,
he's only going to use the toolshe has, Exactly.
He's like I can't fix yourlights for you.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Right, but these people have asked me to help
them with their chronic pain,and it required me to move
beyond these traditional areasof knowledge, and so I ended up
crossing these silos and foundthat, oh, all three of them are
pointing to the same threepatterns of problems or issues
of how we're built that seem tobe behind all chronic pain that
(04:28):
I've treated anyway, and sothat's what the first part of
the book is about.
We can go more into detail aboutthat.
The second book, the secondpart, functions as a workbook,
because that information isuseless if you can't apply it to
yourself and help yourparticular pain issues, and so
the second half of the book istaking you through tests to see
(04:49):
what your pain patterns are andwhat are feeding those pain
patterns, and I introduced thisidea called functional linking
too, which helps you uncoverolder injuries that are
contributing to your currentpain, which most people that's
just not on their radar,strangely so, even when I ask
them point blank what are yourold injuries?
(05:11):
Oh, I have known You've playedfootball and you've never had
any older injuries.
No, no, no, I've had surgeries,but no injuries.
Oh, okay, well, let's surgeriescount as injuries.
So, and now, once you openthose floodgates, then you find
these people have all these oldinjuries that they haven't
(05:31):
thought about in 20, 30 yearsand that are causing their
current pain.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
I'm laughing because when we do assessments it's
always the running joke.
We ask people like what's yourmedical history?
Anything you need to know?
Blah, blah, blah.
What's your medical history,anything we need to know, blah,
blah.
We go through it and then westart our first session and
they're like super out of breath.
So like what's going on?
Oh, I have asthma.
It's like well, why didn't youtell us that beforehand?
We would have made sure you gotyour inhaler on you and don't
take precautions.
Oh, I forgot.
(05:57):
Yeah, yeah, they don't connectit when they're going over the
medicals because they haven'tthought about it, like you said,
in 20 years.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Exactly, and part of that, I think, is medicine's
fault, for we've been.
Medicine is really based onthis idea of component thinking
when, oh, you've got shoulderpain, let's look at your
shoulder, you've got back pain,let's look at your back pain,
(06:25):
let's look at your back.
And so they break the.
You know, research hasdeveloped because we have to be
able to break down the body intocomponents, to study those
components, but what happens isno one's putting all this
research together into anunderstanding of an overall how
we function way again.
And so that's how I've learnedto solve pain is by looking at
these things and looking at itfrom a systems point of view
(06:47):
instead of component thinkingpoint of view.
And so when you go in to seesomeone about pain, you know, oh
, it's my elbow.
No one's thinking well, whatdid you do with your shoulder?
How about your pelvis?
What about your foot?
You know, no one's thinkingabout that because we've been
trained in this componentthinking approach and I, frankly
, I believe that that's why wehave chronic pain.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Yeah, I mean just myself.
Recently I have hip pain.
I'm looking at my hip.
People or doctors look at itand nothing's wrong.
And then everybody's oh, it'sthe way I'm walking.
So let's look at my feet.
Oh, I'm not doing enoughinversion with my foot as I'm
walking, so let me fix that.
And all of a sudden, the painstarts going away in the hip.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Like.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
I said, it's micro-focused on one single
thing, when really you want tolook at the body as a whole,
which is why, with personaltraining, the way we teach it is
take a step back approach.
So when you're trainingsomebody and you'll say they're
doing a chest press, don'thyper-focus on the chest.
Take a step back from thatperson.
Look at that whole body, lookat their body mechanics, from
fingers to toes, and howeverything is moving and working
together, and then you reallycan see how the body's moving
(07:52):
efficiently.
Right Fascia connects all themuscle tissues together, so why
not look at everything?
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Yeah, and so I wrote this book with the idea of not
only helping lay people, but Ialso want to reach out to
professionals like you doctors,chiropractors, other physical
therapists and so forth who aretrying to work with people with
injuries.
And so I've put enough researchand science in that to back up
(08:20):
the elements of what I'm talkingabout.
And then the tests that I havein.
There are the tests, what I've,the elements of what I'm
talking about, and then, youknow, the tests that I have in
there are the tests that I'vebeen using, for I've kind of
honed my test during mytelehealth sessions.
These are the critical teststhat seem to be at the root of
most people's chronic back,sciatic, SI joint, hip, knee,
foot, whatever kind of pain.
I even have a part in there forneck pain and headaches, but
(08:45):
anyway.
So I've straddled that fencebetween not making it too
sciencey, so lay people canunderstand, but making it
sciencey enough so professionalscan get something meaty out of
there too.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Yeah, I love that and you mentioned the first part is
three crossovers.
Do you mind expanding a littlemore on those?
Speaker 2 (09:05):
overs.
Do you mind expanding a littlemore on those?
Yeah, of course.
So I'll just give you oneexample.
So I've identified three painpatterns that seem to be at the
root of almost all chronic pain,and so and I'm talking about
more specifically, back pain orlower body pain or pelvic pain,
si, joint, sciatica, all thatkind of stuff.
So I think we talked a littlebit about one of these last time
.
It's called an extensionproblem, and which extension in
(09:27):
medicine just means arching.
So it means that your back painhurts more when your back is
arched, and so an easy test todo that is if you lie down on
the ground on a firm surfacewith your legs straight and then
, after 30 seconds, bend yourknees.
99% of people with chronic backpain feel more relief when
their knees are bent rather thanwhen their legs are straight.
(09:49):
Well, what they're bendingtheir knees is doing is
flattening the spine andintroducing or removing arching
of the spine.
Really simple concept, okay.
So if you do that test and youfind, oh, I've got an extension
problem.
So if I can arch my spine less,then I'll feel better, and it's
as simple as that really.
(10:09):
I mean, there may be otherfactors, but that's as simple as
a pain pattern gets.
So when we look at fasciaresearch, thomas Myers wrote
this book called Anatomy Trains,which identified superhighways
of fascia running through thebody from head to toe.
Fascia is connective tissue andfascia connects everything to
(10:31):
everything else muscles, bone,tendon, nerves, blood vessels,
everything.
And so he identified thesesuperhighways of fascia that run
through the body, and one ofthem is called the superficial
back line.
And the superficial back lineruns from the top of the head to
the bottom of the foot, allalong the back of our body.
Well, if you can imagine all ofthose muscles and fascia
(10:53):
contracting along thatsuperficial back line, you've
just created an extensionproblem, which is the first
thing that we test just 30seconds ago that your back hurts
more when it's arching.
So the fascia is one of thecomponents that's causing the
back to arch more.
Okay, so that's the fascia sideof things, and we can go much
deeper into fascia if you wantto.
(11:13):
Then the last part of this isthe neurophysiology part.
When we're born, we are bornwith deep reflex patterns that
help us organize our body andfunction in life.
One of those is called theLandau reflex pattern, and what
that does is when we're crawling.
As babies, it helps us lift ourhead.
If you watch, oh, you've got anew baby, you can watch this
(11:34):
yourself.
So when you watch your babystart crawling, you'll see them
trying to lift up their head.
Well, they have to arch theirback to do that.
So that doesn't happen becausethe baby's thinking I need to
arch my back in order to lift myhead.
It's a reflex pattern thathappens, that they're born with,
and so it's a.
And that reflex pattern, calledthe Landau reflex, recruits the
(11:57):
same muscles along the back asthat superficial back line of
fascia and the extension problemwe just discovered in movement
science line of fascia and theextension problem we just
discovered in movement science.
So when we look at all three ofthese, we see that this
extension problem is not onlybecause you stand around arching
your back too much, but youalso probably have a fascial
component to this.
And you may also have aneurophysiology,
(12:19):
neurophysiological component tothis, from a neural contraction
pattern standpoint.
For instance, if you sufferfrom anxiety, well, people who
suffer from anxiety tend to bemore alert all the time.
Well, that alert state in yourbody taps into the Landau reflex
pattern of movement, and sothat's what the first part of
(12:41):
the book is talking about isshowing you what these movement
fascia and neurological reflexpatterns are and how they are
all almost identical to eachother.
But none of these parts ofscience ever talk to each other,
so they're not aware of eachother.
And this is what I've beenputting together for these last
(13:01):
25 plus years.
Is understanding is, you know,finding this information and
applying it to help chronic pain.
That's why I'm successful atsolving chronic pain, and so
that's what the first part is.
And then the second part is notonly testing which patterns you
have, but also why you'rehaving those patterns.
So now you can look at that oldfoot injury, like you were
(13:23):
talking about with your hip, andsee, oh, and if you know that
you have an extension problem,you can then be able to say, oh,
my foot is doing this to me andthat's causing my back to arch
more, which is causing my backpain.
So that's how we put it alltogether.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
I mean it makes sense , right?
I mean, just a little bit ofhead tilt forward is going to
put excessive pressure on yourlower back, like you mentioned,
the fascia being connected.
So if you're pulling forwardhere, it could be straining all
the way up and people can gettension, that which can be from
texting on your phone the wrongway or whatever all these
commonalities that lie within.
(14:01):
So the real question is howdoes somebody tackle a problem
like that, right?
So you have an understandingthat you have.
Let's just take lower back pain, which is the easiest to talk
about.
You have lower back pain you'reexperiencing.
Maybe it's pinching yoursciatic nerve.
Which area do you tackle first?
Do you tackle the movement partof it where you're going to
sciatic nerve?
(14:21):
Which area do you tackle first?
Do you tackle the movement partof it where you're working the
opposing muscles to help pull itaway?
Are you attacking the fasciaresponse of it?
Are you focusing on myofascialrelease or are you focusing on
the nerve part of it where maybeyou're doing some kind of like
nerve flossing?
Speaker 2 (14:37):
So this is a classic example of component thinking
right, because it's not one orthe other, it's all three.
All three of these componentsfunction to serve as that
extension problem that you mighthave, and so you have to
understand what.
First of all, to answer yourquestion, you have to identify,
you have to test and find outwhy you're having pain.
(15:00):
First, that'll help.
And so you need to see whichpattern or patterns you have so
that you can then make sense ofall the other tests that you're
conducting.
So that's how you tackle it isfirst identify the pattern or
patterns that you have and thenall the rest of the tests.
I in the book I explain howthey feed, for instance, an
(15:22):
extension pattern, or how theyfeed, for instance, a side
bending pattern or a flexionpattern.
So once you know the patternthat you have, that is the big
piece of the puzzle.
And there's only three of them.
And guess what, if you have oneof them, then it's impossible
for you to have one of theothers.
So really, there's only twopossible patterns that you can
have at the root of most of yourback sciatic or SI joint pain.
(15:46):
So and this is what I run into alot, anthony is when I talk to
or I watch videos of therapists,you know, talking about
injuries and things like this todo, they say, well, let's try
this and let's try that.
Well, why do we have to try it?
If we actually test the bodyand know what the pattern is and
know where the deficits are,then that removes a lot of the
guessing out of this.
(16:06):
Then the only guess really iswhat's the best exercise to
correct this pattern, ratherthan what in the world, you know
, let's try these 10 exercises,see which ones help, and then
we'll stick with those two.
Well, that's just wasting a lotof the patients and the
therapist's time a lot of times.
Wouldn't it be better to knowwhat it is?
And when I talk to othertherapists like that, I just get
(16:29):
this blank look like huh.
Because they're so used tocomponent thinking and testing
specific tissues as the problemrather than seeing the body as a
system of problems.
That's feeding the pain.
And so this is where thatdisconnect seems to be happening
.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Very interesting, because you're throwing in a lot
of extra components.
I mean, things always happenfor a reason, right?
So we were actually having thisconversation last week.
As a group, we're redoing ourentire model.
We're creating our owncertification process, going
into what you're talking about.
(17:09):
Trainers just don't know enough.
They see a book, they read itand that's about it.
So we're taking it a stepforward to look at the body as a
whole and really adding inscreenings to figure out how to
help people.
And then the thought popped well, their diet could be causing a
lower back pain.
So you start thinking of all ofthese outside things as far as
(17:35):
okay, maybe it's this, maybeit's this, maybe it's this,
maybe it's this, and I agreewith you 100%.
Why not just tackle all of them?
Just do it.
But then you run into theproblem with the individuals who
get overwhelmed and then wouldrather do nothing.
So with an individual, let'ssay someone just listening to
(17:56):
this, they're not seeing apractitioner, they're not seeing
someone like me.
Where do I start?
Like I don't want to go learnall of these different
screenings.
I don't want to go learn aboutnutrition, which one should be
my area of focus first, so I canfeel some sort of relief and
then, once I get the hang of it,branch out to the next one.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Yeah, at the risk of sounding like I'm just promoting
myself, get my book becauseI've distilled all this down
into like five or six tests soit's super easy to figure out
which pain pattern you have.
And then I take you through thecritical things that almost
everyone seems to be missing.
That's feeding it and it's onlythere.
(18:36):
So there's two tests todetermine which pain pattern you
have that extension test I justmentioned on the floor, and
also the side bending test,where you can just take a
picture of yourself and look andsee whether you have a side
bending problem and I explainwhat all of that is in the book.
After that, there's only likefour or five other tests for you
to get to the root of theproblem.
(18:58):
So this is the problem is thatwe can, as you know, in fitness
and medicine we can come up withthousands of tests, right, that
are testing all sorts of things.
But what we don't know is whatif we're testing something
that's really necessary ormeaningful, right, and we don't.
Even if we are testingsomething that's necessary and
(19:19):
meaningful, right, and we don't.
Even if we are testingsomething that's necessary and
meaningful, we have a hard timeputting that into a systems
understanding of how that'sfeeding their pain.
And so that's what this book isall about is helping.
It's primarily written for laypeople, but I've been on this
mission for the past five or soyears to try and help
(19:39):
practitioners be betterpractitioners.
I don't care whether you're amassage therapist, a personal
trainer or a surgeon we can allbe better at what we're doing,
and so getting this informationout, I feel, is critical, and
this is why, frankly, I believewe have chronic pain is because
of the lack of understanding ofhow our body functions as a
(20:00):
system and determining what ismeaningful and what isn't
meaningful.
I've made it really simple inthis book.
In fact, to a person everyphysical therapist I've trained
in this system of understandingthey can't believe how simple it
is compared to what they'velearned in school.
It is so much simpler than youcan imagine and, with a comment
(20:24):
that really stuck with me wasone therapist said it's more
comprehensive, but it's so muchsimpler and it's easier than a
lot of people think.
And a lot of people think it'shard because they've been
looking at thousands of videosand talking to all these
different practitioners who allhave different things to say and
focus on and whatever, and soit gets overwhelming, yeah, and
(20:49):
so I understand that, but itreally it's so much simpler than
everyone seems to be making it,because this is coming from a
systems understanding ratherthan a component understanding.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Interesting.
So let's just do a real lifeexample because I feel like for
people that aren't in our fieldit's just easier to comprehend
that.
Absolutely, mary's 46 years old.
She has lower back pain Beenbothering her for quite a while.
She points to roughly aroundher like L4, l5 area, and
(21:23):
sitting makes it worse.
She looks at your book and isgoing to the screenings.
Right, so you do movementscreening.
She puts her legs straight.
She feels lower back pain.
She brings it in, gets relieffrom it and the other ones
really don't show her anything.
What does she do?
(21:44):
What's Mary's next?
Speaker 2 (21:45):
step.
So then we know.
So if none of the other testsare showing her anything, then
we're assuming that Mary hascentral low back pain and not
unilateral back pain.
Is that correct?
Yeah, okay, so she has centrallow back pain and none of the
other tests.
And, by the way, I don'tbelieve that any of the other
tests wouldn't show her anything.
But I know you have to say thatbecause you haven't read the
(22:07):
book or seen the test, so I getit.
So what this is telling us isfundamentally Mary and is Mary?
Is Mary overweight?
Has she had kids?
Anything like that?
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Mary's had two kids.
She's about 40, 50 poundsoverweight.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Okay, great, so let's say that.
So you've just told me that shehas an extension problem, which
means her back is too arched.
All right, so if you canimagine, if your listeners can
visualize what a pregnant womanlooks like right in the eighth
or ninth month of pregnancy,they'll see a big belly out in
front of them, and if they canimagine that, they can then
(22:42):
imagine that the back hasarching significantly because of
that belly.
What I showed in my back painduring pregnancy book is the
back does not bounce back to itsoriginal shape after pregnancy.
It stays in a somewhat morearched position, setting up
women who have had kids forextension problems in the future
(23:05):
causing back pain.
Women, when they have back painduring pregnancy and then it
goes away, well, they've justlost, you know, 15 pounds of
load in their stomach right,pulling their back into the
success of arching, which iswhat's causing the back pain
then.
So okay.
So one of the other things thathappens during pregnancy is
that women, because of the extraload, that's rapidly, they're
(23:29):
rapidly gaining weight becauseof their pregnancy.
So a lot of women have a hardtime muscularly to hold that
weight up.
So one of the things that theysuddenly do, their brain does
without their consciousawareness, is that they start
locking their knees to hold themup, so now they can stand on
their joints instead of usingtheir leg muscles to hold them
(23:50):
up.
Well, if you stand up right now, anthony, or if any of your
listeners stand up right nowhopefully they're not driving
when they stand up and if youlock your knees, you will feel
that your back is arching more.
And if you simply unlock yourknees, you will feel that your
back loses the tension that youjust created when you arched
your knees, because your back isarching.
(24:11):
So I would tell Mary right offthe bat because almost all pain
has to do with how you're usingyour body in some way, I would
tell her stop locking your kneeswhen you're standing and
walking, and that alone willsolve a lot of chronic back pain
.
All right, I just had a guy whosuffered from sciatic pain for
three years.
(24:32):
Saw tons of differentpractitioners, got my home
program, saw that I have alittle technique in there where
you tape the back of your kneesto stop you from locking them.
Solved his pain in three days.
He's like why isn't anyone elseshowing?
Because we're not trained tothink of the body in a systems
(24:53):
point of view.
We're trained to understandpain from a component thinking
point of view, so yourpractitioners have been focused
on a disc bulge, discherniations, facet joint issues,
stenosis, all sorts of things,rather than the system of how
you're using your body that hascreated all of those problems in
(25:13):
the first place.
Simply unlocking his kneesstopped three years of pain
within three days.
Same with Mary.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
I love that answer and you just sparked a question
that I think, just based uponwhat's been going on recently
with personal people in my life,I think it's a good topic of
choice and it's going to betough to answer because it's
non-specific.
So it's just a broad question.
Sure, spinal surgery.
(25:44):
Let's talk about spinal surgerybecause I think that's
something that people don'treally understand.
I'm going to I think you mightbe the same, but I am it called
the illusion bias and I had tolook it up because I had no idea
what it's called.
So meaning I have bias to thepoint where I see people after
spinal surgery because it wentreally bad.
So to me, all spinal surgery isbad, especially turning
(26:08):
herniated bulging discs.
A lot of surgeons, like yousaid, tools in the toolbox.
Let's go in, let's do somealabadectomy, let's do some
spinal fusion.
I never see it go well.
What is your take on even ifyou can give a specific example
of somebody who went through itor didn't go through it and felt
better on spinal surgery,should it be an absolute last
(26:32):
resort or should it be somethingwe should push more because
we're there medically?
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Well, I'll tell you from my professional experience,
working with many patients whohave had spinal surgery, no
surgeon that I have ever talkedto or patient of theirs that I
have ever seen has said on thevery first visit we're going to
do surgery.
All of those surgeons send themto conservative treatment first
.
Because back surgery is risky,right.
(26:59):
And so every patient that Ihave seen, whether they failed
surgery or not failed surgerywhatever.
Every surgeon sends them to tryconservative care first to see
if they can solve it.
Because no surgeon wants tooperate on your back, especially
if you're from a high risk,non-specific, low back pain
group Right.
And so after that patienttypically fails all the
(27:24):
conservative treatments thatthey could try, then they have
surgery.
And then let's say that surgeryfails right, because, yes,
we're going to see the surgeriesthat fail.
Well, why did that surgery fail?
The reason is is because theynever corrected the hammers that
were hammering on their backprior to the surgery, and so
those same hammers are hammeringon their back after the surgery
(27:48):
.
What are those hammers?
Well, we just talked about onelocking the knees.
If you have an extensionproblem, that is a massive
hammer to your lumbar spine.
So this is the problem that Ifind is that all like doctors
and I think lay people fall intothis category too everyone sees
(28:08):
conservative care as the samething.
We all do the same thing, andso you know you see one
therapist or a personal traineror a chiropractor, you've seen
them all right.
And so you know you've triedtwo or three and you failed.
So that means that conservativecare won't help you?
Well, no, that's not exactlywhat it means.
It means that particular typeof conservative care didn't help
(28:30):
you, and I can almost guaranteethat that particular type of
conservative care didn't helpyou, and I can almost guarantee
that that particular type ofconservative care was a
component thinking approach,trying to treat the tissues that
are damaged rather than thesystems that are creating that
damage in the first place.
And so my recommendation topeople who are about to have
surgery is first understand whatthe problems are and try and
(28:52):
fix those.
The problem is is, again,they're going to people who
think not from a systems pointof view.
So if and most people can fixtheir back prior to surgery and
therefore don't need surgery andif you fix those systemic
problems and then you go tosurgery, whether you're, then
your chances are much higher tohave a better outcome after the
(29:14):
surgery because you've removedfive or 10 of those hammers that
are hammering on your back.
But if you don't fix thosehammers, then how can you expect
that surgery to succeed?
That's my take on it.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Yeah, and the only part I disagree with is, at
least from my personalexperience, surgeons don't use
surgery as a last resort.
I have many people that theydon't have used a single
conservative treatment onpatients and we've had to try to
talk people out of it, whichhas never worked.
Because they go well, they weara white coat.
That's just me, obviously justsaying that, but they're a
(29:48):
doctor, they know better.
Yet again, not wanting to takethat approach from us where
you're looking from alldifferent angles about what's
going on, in worst case, if wecan fix the other issues going
on in your body, you're going tofare way better in surgery
anyway.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Yeah, I've never met one of those surgeons, so I
couldn't speak to that.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
You're lucky.
It's a far and few between, butthere are ones that are very
right to the point.
And then the flip side of itand I'm not a physical therapist
, you are so insurance I'vealways heard from physical
therapists, at least around here, that an insurance company is
going to dictate care forpatients and not the therapist.
(30:30):
Going back to your point ofthinking an insurance company is
going to say oh, they haveshoulder pain, work on the
shoulder, don't work on anythingelse.
Is there truth to that?
Speaker 2 (30:38):
There is some truth to that, yes.
However, we can be creative inhow we write our notes Right,
and so you know if you can drawthat line that if you can solve
someone's shoulder surgery,shoulder problem by solving a
pelvic problem, then thatresolution should come
relatively fast.
(30:59):
So you shouldn't need to have20 sessions to solve a pelvic
problem that you think mightlead to a shoulder problem.
You should be able to solvethat in one or two sessions,
right?
So part of it is how thattherapist is approaching solving
something else other than thatshoulder, perhaps right.
And then also maybe theyhaven't drawn the correct line
(31:22):
from what they're trying tosolve to the shoulder issue.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Gotcha, that makes sense.
So it's just more of thecreativity of-.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Yeah, I do that all the time I'll fix.
You know I'll trace neck paindown to an ankle, right.
Well, okay, I'll fix the anklein one or two sessions and how
that weaves for the body,That'll solve that part of it,
right, and so we don't have tomake a big deal out of it from
an insurance and note-takingstandpoint.
(31:51):
Right, We'll just move on andfix that lower stuff and now
focus on the upper stuff.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Now I love that.
And then Rick, just kind ofwrap it up personally is what
would be your biggest takeawayfor people who, like, suffer
from lower back pain or chroniclower back pain and really have
tried a bunch of differentoptions?
I know obviously you're goingto say, get your book, but
what's that first step in thatbook for them to take is to do
(32:18):
the screenings and then kind offollow through, like what does
that workbook look like for them?
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Yeah, it's so simple, anthony.
I'm telling you I I'm reallybig on making things simple, uh,
because I'm not a smart,complicated kind of guy, right,
and I've worked with patients somany patients over the years.
So what it's going to look likeis I think I was trying to
count them in my head todaybecause I don't have a copy of
my book in front of me yet.
(32:43):
It's that new.
So I think I have like sixtests and they're really simple
tests.
And the other nice thing,Anthony, is that I've made
videos of the tests so that youcan make sure that you're doing
the test correctly and youunderstand what I'm talking
about.
So there's no guessing, right.
And then I have you write downwas my pain better or not better
(33:03):
?
Do I have an extension problem?
Do I not have an extensionproblem?
It's that easy.
So do you know?
It's that easy.
You don't need to haveincredible observational skills
to know what the results of thetests are.
And the other nice thing isthat each of the tests, you'll
(33:25):
know instantly their connectionto your pain.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Because if you do what I tell you to do to correct
that problem that you found inthe test, you should see an
almost immediate reduction inyour pain.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
I love it.
And then last question how canpeople find your book, purchase
it, all the good stuff?
Yeah, it's on Amazon.
Or you can go to my website,rickoldermancom.
I have some free stuff on there, and then also I have my own
programs, and then on my websitein the book section, you'll see
an Amazon link to buy it onthere.
And then also I have my homeprograms, but, uh, and then on
my website in the book section,you'll see an Amazon link to buy
it on Amazon.
But if you want to watch thevideos of the tests in the book,
you'll have to come back to mywebsite anyway.
So you might as well just learnwhere it is and and and just
(34:06):
start from there and then comeback to it.
So it's easy.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Thank you for coming on, thank you for listening to
this episode of health, fitnessredefined.
Don't forget, hit thatsubscribe button and join us
next week as we dive deeper intothis ever-changing field and
remember fitness is medicine.
Until next time, thank you,outro Music.
Hello and welcome to Health and Fitness Redefined and
we got another great episodefor all of you.
Today we have a guest that'sbeen on the show about a year
ago, all the way out fromColorado.
So, without further ado, let'swelcome Rick.
Rick, it's a pleasure to haveyou.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Thanks a lot for having me, anthony, excited to
be here.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Excited to have you back on.
I know last time we were on wehad a 45 minute conversation.
It was nice in detail aboutpain.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
By my standards, even that's short, because I could
talk about this stuff for hours.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Well, I hope everyone goes back and listens to it and
really gets an understanding ofyour background.
Talk a little bit about youbeing I know we talked a little
bit about being a physical goesback and listens to it and
really gets an understanding ofyour background.
Talk a little bit about youbeing I know we talk a little
bit about you being a physicaltherapist and how you approach
things differently, so we'rejust going to jump right into it
.
Then it's a littleuntraditional, which I think is
fun.
All about your new book thatyou wrote, which is about being
pain-free it's something we liketalking a lot about on this
(01:02):
show is trying to figure outways to overcome commonality
issues such as lower back pain,sciatica, everything that kind
of falls with that.
So let's ask the firstquestions what made you want to
write the book?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah, well, you know, anthony, I sold my clinic a
couple of years ago and I'vebeen working under a non-compete
clause, so I can only seepeople via telehealth for three
years, and so I've been workingwith a lot of people and it
really, when I don't get to usemy hands, it really helps me
(01:35):
focus my message and visionabout what needs to happen with
somebody, and I need toarticulate that in a way and do
testing in a way that you knowperson.
So this, while it's the sameapproach I've been using for the
last 20, 25 years, this reallyhelped me hone my message as to
(01:57):
what exactly I was looking forto help these people remotely,
and so it clarified my message.
And then, at the same time, Ihave created a practitioner's
training program to help healthand wellness people do what I do
, and in that program there's a10-page neurophysiology paper I
wrote many years ago and Ithought you know what?
(02:20):
I think it's time for me justto flesh this out a little bit
more, maybe create a booklet outof it instead of just a little
10 page paper, and before I knewit it had become a book.
And so I combined this, thesetwo things that neurophysiology
10 page paper, together withwhat I've been doing these past
two years, honing my vision andmy my message to help these
(02:40):
people, and it's created thisnew book called pain patterns to
help these people.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
And it's created this new book called Pain Patterns.
I like it.
So it kind of was a work inprogress.
You didn't think was going tohappen and you just started
diving deeper and deeper intothe pigeonhole and you're like,
oh wow.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Yeah, that's exactly how it was.
I just woke up one morning.
I'm just like holy smokes.
I think I'm writing a new book.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
When did the book come out?
Speaker 2 (03:03):
It came out November 15th.
Oh, recently, awesome healthand wellness practitioner I've
talked to because I'm combiningelements of movement science,
(03:26):
fascia research andneurophysiology, which have all
three of these areas of research, have exposed similar patterns
of problems that we all face inthese areas of research, and it
turns out that there are threepatterns that overlap among all
three of these silos of science,and so typically what happens
(03:50):
with researchers is they stay intheir area of research, fascia
stays in fascia, physicaltherapy stays in physical
therapy and neurophysiologystays in neurophysiology.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
It's the saying you're going to hire a plumber,
he's only going to use the toolshe has, Exactly.
He's like I can't fix yourlights for you.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Right, but these people have asked me to help
them with their chronic pain,and it required me to move
beyond these traditional areasof knowledge, and so I ended up
crossing these silos and foundthat, oh, all three of them are
pointing to the same threepatterns of problems or issues
of how we're built that seem tobe behind all chronic pain that
(04:28):
I've treated anyway, and sothat's what the first part of
the book is about.
We can go more into detail aboutthat.
The second book, the secondpart, functions as a workbook,
because that information isuseless if you can't apply it to
yourself and help yourparticular pain issues, and so
the second half of the book istaking you through tests to see
(04:49):
what your pain patterns are andwhat are feeding those pain
patterns, and I introduced thisidea called functional linking
too, which helps you uncoverolder injuries that are
contributing to your currentpain, which most people that's
just not on their radar,strangely so, even when I ask
them point blank what are yourold injuries?
(05:11):
Oh, I have known You've playedfootball and you've never had
any older injuries.
No, no, no, I've had surgeries,but no injuries.
Oh, okay, well, let's surgeriescount as injuries.
So, and now, once you openthose floodgates, then you find
these people have all these oldinjuries that they haven't
(05:31):
thought about in 20, 30 yearsand that are causing their
current pain.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
I'm laughing because when we do assessments it's
always the running joke.
We ask people like what's yourmedical history?
Anything you need to know?
Blah, blah, blah.
What's your medical history,anything we need to know, blah,
blah.
We go through it and then westart our first session and
they're like super out of breath.
So like what's going on?
Oh, I have asthma.
It's like well, why didn't youtell us that beforehand?
We would have made sure you gotyour inhaler on you and don't
take precautions.
Oh, I forgot.
(05:57):
Yeah, yeah, they don't connectit when they're going over the
medicals because they haven'tthought about it, like you said,
in 20 years.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Exactly, and part of that, I think, is medicine's
fault, for we've been.
Medicine is really based onthis idea of component thinking
when, oh, you've got shoulderpain, let's look at your
shoulder, you've got back pain,let's look at your back pain,
(06:25):
let's look at your back.
And so they break the.
You know, research hasdeveloped because we have to be
able to break down the body intocomponents, to study those
components, but what happens isno one's putting all this
research together into anunderstanding of an overall how
we function way again.
And so that's how I've learnedto solve pain is by looking at
these things and looking at itfrom a systems point of view
(06:47):
instead of component thinkingpoint of view.
And so when you go in to seesomeone about pain, you know, oh
, it's my elbow.
No one's thinking well, whatdid you do with your shoulder?
How about your pelvis?
What about your foot?
You know, no one's thinkingabout that because we've been
trained in this componentthinking approach and I, frankly
, I believe that that's why wehave chronic pain.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Yeah, I mean just myself.
Recently I have hip pain.
I'm looking at my hip.
People or doctors look at itand nothing's wrong.
And then everybody's oh, it'sthe way I'm walking.
So let's look at my feet.
Oh, I'm not doing enoughinversion with my foot as I'm
walking, so let me fix that.
And all of a sudden, the painstarts going away in the hip.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Like.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
I said, it's micro-focused on one single
thing, when really you want tolook at the body as a whole,
which is why, with personaltraining, the way we teach it is
take a step back approach.
So when you're trainingsomebody and you'll say they're
doing a chest press, don'thyper-focus on the chest.
Take a step back from thatperson.
Look at that whole body, lookat their body mechanics, from
fingers to toes, and howeverything is moving and working
together, and then you reallycan see how the body's moving
(07:52):
efficiently.
Right Fascia connects all themuscle tissues together, so why
not look at everything?
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Yeah, and so I wrote this book with the idea of not
only helping lay people, but Ialso want to reach out to
professionals like you doctors,chiropractors, other physical
therapists and so forth who aretrying to work with people with
injuries.
And so I've put enough researchand science in that to back up
(08:20):
the elements of what I'm talkingabout.
And then the tests that I havein.
There are the tests, what I've,the elements of what I'm
talking about, and then, youknow, the tests that I have in
there are the tests that I'vebeen using, for I've kind of
honed my test during mytelehealth sessions.
These are the critical teststhat seem to be at the root of
most people's chronic back,sciatic, SI joint, hip, knee,
foot, whatever kind of pain.
I even have a part in there forneck pain and headaches, but
(08:45):
anyway.
So I've straddled that fencebetween not making it too
sciencey, so lay people canunderstand, but making it
sciencey enough so professionalscan get something meaty out of
there too.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Yeah, I love that and you mentioned the first part is
three crossovers.
Do you mind expanding a littlemore on those?
Speaker 2 (09:05):
overs.
Do you mind expanding a littlemore on those?
Yeah, of course.
So I'll just give you oneexample.
So I've identified three painpatterns that seem to be at the
root of almost all chronic pain,and so and I'm talking about
more specifically, back pain orlower body pain or pelvic pain,
si, joint, sciatica, all thatkind of stuff.
So I think we talked a littlebit about one of these last time
.
It's called an extensionproblem, and which extension in
(09:27):
medicine just means arching.
So it means that your back painhurts more when your back is
arched, and so an easy test todo that is if you lie down on
the ground on a firm surfacewith your legs straight and then
, after 30 seconds, bend yourknees.
99% of people with chronic backpain feel more relief when
their knees are bent rather thanwhen their legs are straight.
(09:49):
Well, what they're bendingtheir knees is doing is
flattening the spine andintroducing or removing arching
of the spine.
Really simple concept, okay.
So if you do that test and youfind, oh, I've got an extension
problem.
So if I can arch my spine less,then I'll feel better, and it's
as simple as that really.
(10:09):
I mean, there may be otherfactors, but that's as simple as
a pain pattern gets.
So when we look at fasciaresearch, thomas Myers wrote
this book called Anatomy Trains,which identified superhighways
of fascia running through thebody from head to toe.
Fascia is connective tissue andfascia connects everything to
(10:31):
everything else muscles, bone,tendon, nerves, blood vessels,
everything.
And so he identified thesesuperhighways of fascia that run
through the body, and one ofthem is called the superficial
back line.
And the superficial back lineruns from the top of the head to
the bottom of the foot, allalong the back of our body.
Well, if you can imagine all ofthose muscles and fascia
(10:53):
contracting along thatsuperficial back line, you've
just created an extensionproblem, which is the first
thing that we test just 30seconds ago that your back hurts
more when it's arching.
So the fascia is one of thecomponents that's causing the
back to arch more.
Okay, so that's the fascia sideof things, and we can go much
deeper into fascia if you wantto.
(11:13):
Then the last part of this isthe neurophysiology part.
When we're born, we are bornwith deep reflex patterns that
help us organize our body andfunction in life.
One of those is called theLandau reflex pattern, and what
that does is when we're crawling.
As babies, it helps us lift ourhead.
If you watch, oh, you've got anew baby, you can watch this
(11:34):
yourself.
So when you watch your babystart crawling, you'll see them
trying to lift up their head.
Well, they have to arch theirback to do that.
So that doesn't happen becausethe baby's thinking I need to
arch my back in order to lift myhead.
It's a reflex pattern thathappens, that they're born with,
and so it's a.
And that reflex pattern, calledthe Landau reflex, recruits the
(11:57):
same muscles along the back asthat superficial back line of
fascia and the extension problemwe just discovered in movement
science line of fascia and theextension problem we just
discovered in movement science.
So when we look at all three ofthese, we see that this
extension problem is not onlybecause you stand around arching
your back too much, but youalso probably have a fascial
component to this.
And you may also have aneurophysiology,
(12:19):
neurophysiological component tothis, from a neural contraction
pattern standpoint.
For instance, if you sufferfrom anxiety, well, people who
suffer from anxiety tend to bemore alert all the time.
Well, that alert state in yourbody taps into the Landau reflex
pattern of movement, and sothat's what the first part of
(12:41):
the book is talking about isshowing you what these movement
fascia and neurological reflexpatterns are and how they are
all almost identical to eachother.
But none of these parts ofscience ever talk to each other,
so they're not aware of eachother.
And this is what I've beenputting together for these last
(13:01):
25 plus years.
Is understanding is, you know,finding this information and
applying it to help chronic pain.
That's why I'm successful atsolving chronic pain, and so
that's what the first part is.
And then the second part is notonly testing which patterns you
have, but also why you'rehaving those patterns.
So now you can look at that oldfoot injury, like you were
(13:23):
talking about with your hip, andsee, oh, and if you know that
you have an extension problem,you can then be able to say, oh,
my foot is doing this to me andthat's causing my back to arch
more, which is causing my backpain.
So that's how we put it alltogether.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
I mean it makes sense , right?
I mean, just a little bit ofhead tilt forward is going to
put excessive pressure on yourlower back, like you mentioned,
the fascia being connected.
So if you're pulling forwardhere, it could be straining all
the way up and people can gettension, that which can be from
texting on your phone the wrongway or whatever all these
commonalities that lie within.
(14:01):
So the real question is howdoes somebody tackle a problem
like that, right?
So you have an understandingthat you have.
Let's just take lower back pain, which is the easiest to talk
about.
You have lower back pain you'reexperiencing.
Maybe it's pinching yoursciatic nerve.
Which area do you tackle first?
Do you tackle the movement partof it where you're going to
sciatic nerve?
(14:21):
Which area do you tackle first?
Do you tackle the movement partof it where you're working the
opposing muscles to help pull itaway?
Are you attacking the fasciaresponse of it?
Are you focusing on myofascialrelease or are you focusing on
the nerve part of it where maybeyou're doing some kind of like
nerve flossing?
Speaker 2 (14:37):
So this is a classic example of component thinking
right, because it's not one orthe other, it's all three.
All three of these componentsfunction to serve as that
extension problem that you mighthave, and so you have to
understand what.
First of all, to answer yourquestion, you have to identify,
you have to test and find outwhy you're having pain.
(15:00):
First, that'll help.
And so you need to see whichpattern or patterns you have so
that you can then make sense ofall the other tests that you're
conducting.
So that's how you tackle it isfirst identify the pattern or
patterns that you have and thenall the rest of the tests.
I in the book I explain howthey feed, for instance, an
(15:22):
extension pattern, or how theyfeed, for instance, a side
bending pattern or a flexionpattern.
So once you know the patternthat you have, that is the big
piece of the puzzle.
And there's only three of them.
And guess what, if you have oneof them, then it's impossible
for you to have one of theothers.
So really, there's only twopossible patterns that you can
have at the root of most of yourback sciatic or SI joint pain.
(15:46):
So and this is what I run into alot, anthony is when I talk to
or I watch videos of therapists,you know, talking about
injuries and things like this todo, they say, well, let's try
this and let's try that.
Well, why do we have to try it?
If we actually test the bodyand know what the pattern is and
know where the deficits are,then that removes a lot of the
guessing out of this.
(16:06):
Then the only guess really iswhat's the best exercise to
correct this pattern, ratherthan what in the world, you know
, let's try these 10 exercises,see which ones help, and then
we'll stick with those two.
Well, that's just wasting a lotof the patients and the
therapist's time a lot of times.
Wouldn't it be better to knowwhat it is?
And when I talk to othertherapists like that, I just get
(16:29):
this blank look like huh.
Because they're so used tocomponent thinking and testing
specific tissues as the problemrather than seeing the body as a
system of problems.
That's feeding the pain.
And so this is where thatdisconnect seems to be happening
.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Very interesting, because you're throwing in a lot
of extra components.
I mean, things always happenfor a reason, right?
So we were actually having thisconversation last week.
As a group, we're redoing ourentire model.
We're creating our owncertification process, going
into what you're talking about.
(17:09):
Trainers just don't know enough.
They see a book, they read itand that's about it.
So we're taking it a stepforward to look at the body as a
whole and really adding inscreenings to figure out how to
help people.
And then the thought popped well, their diet could be causing a
lower back pain.
So you start thinking of all ofthese outside things as far as
(17:35):
okay, maybe it's this, maybeit's this, maybe it's this,
maybe it's this, and I agreewith you 100%.
Why not just tackle all of them?
Just do it.
But then you run into theproblem with the individuals who
get overwhelmed and then wouldrather do nothing.
So with an individual, let'ssay someone just listening to
(17:56):
this, they're not seeing apractitioner, they're not seeing
someone like me.
Where do I start?
Like I don't want to go learnall of these different
screenings.
I don't want to go learn aboutnutrition, which one should be
my area of focus first, so I canfeel some sort of relief and
then, once I get the hang of it,branch out to the next one.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Yeah, at the risk of sounding like I'm just promoting
myself, get my book becauseI've distilled all this down
into like five or six tests soit's super easy to figure out
which pain pattern you have.
And then I take you through thecritical things that almost
everyone seems to be missing.
That's feeding it and it's onlythere.
(18:36):
So there's two tests todetermine which pain pattern you
have that extension test I justmentioned on the floor, and
also the side bending test,where you can just take a
picture of yourself and look andsee whether you have a side
bending problem and I explainwhat all of that is in the book.
After that, there's only likefour or five other tests for you
to get to the root of theproblem.
(18:58):
So this is the problem is thatwe can, as you know, in fitness
and medicine we can come up withthousands of tests, right, that
are testing all sorts of things.
But what we don't know is whatif we're testing something
that's really necessary ormeaningful, right, and we don't.
Even if we are testingsomething that's necessary and
(19:19):
meaningful, right, and we don't.
Even if we are testingsomething that's necessary and
meaningful, we have a hard timeputting that into a systems
understanding of how that'sfeeding their pain.
And so that's what this book isall about is helping.
It's primarily written for laypeople, but I've been on this
mission for the past five or soyears to try and help
(19:39):
practitioners be betterpractitioners.
I don't care whether you're amassage therapist, a personal
trainer or a surgeon we can allbe better at what we're doing,
and so getting this informationout, I feel, is critical, and
this is why, frankly, I believewe have chronic pain is because
of the lack of understanding ofhow our body functions as a
(20:00):
system and determining what ismeaningful and what isn't
meaningful.
I've made it really simple inthis book.
In fact, to a person everyphysical therapist I've trained
in this system of understandingthey can't believe how simple it
is compared to what they'velearned in school.
It is so much simpler than youcan imagine and, with a comment
(20:24):
that really stuck with me wasone therapist said it's more
comprehensive, but it's so muchsimpler and it's easier than a
lot of people think.
And a lot of people think it'shard because they've been
looking at thousands of videosand talking to all these
different practitioners who allhave different things to say and
focus on and whatever, and soit gets overwhelming, yeah, and
(20:49):
so I understand that, but itreally it's so much simpler than
everyone seems to be making it,because this is coming from a
systems understanding ratherthan a component understanding.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Interesting.
So let's just do a real lifeexample because I feel like for
people that aren't in our fieldit's just easier to comprehend
that.
Absolutely, mary's 46 years old.
She has lower back pain Beenbothering her for quite a while.
She points to roughly aroundher like L4, l5 area, and
(21:23):
sitting makes it worse.
She looks at your book and isgoing to the screenings.
Right, so you do movementscreening.
She puts her legs straight.
She feels lower back pain.
She brings it in, gets relieffrom it and the other ones
really don't show her anything.
What does she do?
(21:44):
What's Mary's next?
Speaker 2 (21:45):
step.
So then we know.
So if none of the other testsare showing her anything, then
we're assuming that Mary hascentral low back pain and not
unilateral back pain.
Is that correct?
Yeah, okay, so she has centrallow back pain and none of the
other tests.
And, by the way, I don'tbelieve that any of the other
tests wouldn't show her anything.
But I know you have to say thatbecause you haven't read the
(22:07):
book or seen the test, so I getit.
So what this is telling us isfundamentally Mary and is Mary?
Is Mary overweight?
Has she had kids?
Anything like that?
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Mary's had two kids.
She's about 40, 50 poundsoverweight.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Okay, great, so let's say that.
So you've just told me that shehas an extension problem, which
means her back is too arched.
All right, so if you canimagine, if your listeners can
visualize what a pregnant womanlooks like right in the eighth
or ninth month of pregnancy,they'll see a big belly out in
front of them, and if they canimagine that, they can then
(22:42):
imagine that the back hasarching significantly because of
that belly.
What I showed in my back painduring pregnancy book is the
back does not bounce back to itsoriginal shape after pregnancy.
It stays in a somewhat morearched position, setting up
women who have had kids forextension problems in the future
(23:05):
causing back pain.
Women, when they have back painduring pregnancy and then it
goes away, well, they've justlost, you know, 15 pounds of
load in their stomach right,pulling their back into the
success of arching, which iswhat's causing the back pain
then.
So okay.
So one of the other things thathappens during pregnancy is
that women, because of the extraload, that's rapidly, they're
(23:29):
rapidly gaining weight becauseof their pregnancy.
So a lot of women have a hardtime muscularly to hold that
weight up.
So one of the things that theysuddenly do, their brain does
without their consciousawareness, is that they start
locking their knees to hold themup, so now they can stand on
their joints instead of usingtheir leg muscles to hold them
(23:50):
up.
Well, if you stand up right now, anthony, or if any of your
listeners stand up right nowhopefully they're not driving
when they stand up and if youlock your knees, you will feel
that your back is arching more.
And if you simply unlock yourknees, you will feel that your
back loses the tension that youjust created when you arched
your knees, because your back isarching.
(24:11):
So I would tell Mary right offthe bat because almost all pain
has to do with how you're usingyour body in some way, I would
tell her stop locking your kneeswhen you're standing and
walking, and that alone willsolve a lot of chronic back pain
.
All right, I just had a guy whosuffered from sciatic pain for
three years.
(24:32):
Saw tons of differentpractitioners, got my home
program, saw that I have alittle technique in there where
you tape the back of your kneesto stop you from locking them.
Solved his pain in three days.
He's like why isn't anyone elseshowing?
Because we're not trained tothink of the body in a systems
(24:53):
point of view.
We're trained to understandpain from a component thinking
point of view, so yourpractitioners have been focused
on a disc bulge, discherniations, facet joint issues,
stenosis, all sorts of things,rather than the system of how
you're using your body that hascreated all of those problems in
(25:13):
the first place.
Simply unlocking his kneesstopped three years of pain
within three days.
Same with Mary.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
I love that answer and you just sparked a question
that I think, just based uponwhat's been going on recently
with personal people in my life,I think it's a good topic of
choice and it's going to betough to answer because it's
non-specific.
So it's just a broad question.
Sure, spinal surgery.
(25:44):
Let's talk about spinal surgerybecause I think that's
something that people don'treally understand.
I'm going to I think you mightbe the same, but I am it called
the illusion bias and I had tolook it up because I had no idea
what it's called.
So meaning I have bias to thepoint where I see people after
spinal surgery because it wentreally bad.
So to me, all spinal surgery isbad, especially turning
(26:08):
herniated bulging discs.
A lot of surgeons, like yousaid, tools in the toolbox.
Let's go in, let's do somealabadectomy, let's do some
spinal fusion.
I never see it go well.
What is your take on even ifyou can give a specific example
of somebody who went through itor didn't go through it and felt
better on spinal surgery,should it be an absolute last
(26:32):
resort or should it be somethingwe should push more because
we're there medically?
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Well, I'll tell you from my professional experience,
working with many patients whohave had spinal surgery, no
surgeon that I have ever talkedto or patient of theirs that I
have ever seen has said on thevery first visit we're going to
do surgery.
All of those surgeons send themto conservative treatment first
.
Because back surgery is risky,right.
(26:59):
And so every patient that Ihave seen, whether they failed
surgery or not failed surgerywhatever.
Every surgeon sends them to tryconservative care first to see
if they can solve it.
Because no surgeon wants tooperate on your back, especially
if you're from a high risk,non-specific, low back pain
group Right.
And so after that patienttypically fails all the
(27:24):
conservative treatments thatthey could try, then they have
surgery.
And then let's say that surgeryfails right, because, yes,
we're going to see the surgeriesthat fail.
Well, why did that surgery fail?
The reason is is because theynever corrected the hammers that
were hammering on their backprior to the surgery, and so
those same hammers are hammeringon their back after the surgery
(27:48):
.
What are those hammers?
Well, we just talked about onelocking the knees.
If you have an extensionproblem, that is a massive
hammer to your lumbar spine.
So this is the problem that Ifind is that all like doctors
and I think lay people fall intothis category too everyone sees
(28:08):
conservative care as the samething.
We all do the same thing, andso you know you see one
therapist or a personal traineror a chiropractor, you've seen
them all right.
And so you know you've triedtwo or three and you failed.
So that means that conservativecare won't help you?
Well, no, that's not exactlywhat it means.
It means that particular typeof conservative care didn't help
(28:30):
you, and I can almost guaranteethat that particular type of
conservative care didn't helpyou, and I can almost guarantee
that that particular type ofconservative care was a
component thinking approach,trying to treat the tissues that
are damaged rather than thesystems that are creating that
damage in the first place.
And so my recommendation topeople who are about to have
surgery is first understand whatthe problems are and try and
(28:52):
fix those.
The problem is is, again,they're going to people who
think not from a systems pointof view.
So if and most people can fixtheir back prior to surgery and
therefore don't need surgery andif you fix those systemic
problems and then you go tosurgery, whether you're, then
your chances are much higher tohave a better outcome after the
(29:14):
surgery because you've removedfive or 10 of those hammers that
are hammering on your back.
But if you don't fix thosehammers, then how can you expect
that surgery to succeed?
That's my take on it.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
Yeah, and the only part I disagree with is, at
least from my personalexperience, surgeons don't use
surgery as a last resort.
I have many people that theydon't have used a single
conservative treatment onpatients and we've had to try to
talk people out of it, whichhas never worked.
Because they go well, they weara white coat.
That's just me, obviously justsaying that, but they're a
(29:48):
doctor, they know better.
Yet again, not wanting to takethat approach from us where
you're looking from alldifferent angles about what's
going on, in worst case, if wecan fix the other issues going
on in your body, you're going tofare way better in surgery
anyway.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Yeah, I've never met one of those surgeons, so I
couldn't speak to that.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
You're lucky.
It's a far and few between, butthere are ones that are very
right to the point.
And then the flip side of itand I'm not a physical therapist
, you are so insurance I'vealways heard from physical
therapists, at least around here, that an insurance company is
going to dictate care forpatients and not the therapist.
(30:30):
Going back to your point ofthinking an insurance company is
going to say oh, they haveshoulder pain, work on the
shoulder, don't work on anythingelse.
Is there truth to that?
Speaker 2 (30:38):
There is some truth to that, yes.
However, we can be creative inhow we write our notes Right,
and so you know if you can drawthat line that if you can solve
someone's shoulder surgery,shoulder problem by solving a
pelvic problem, then thatresolution should come
relatively fast.
(30:59):
So you shouldn't need to have20 sessions to solve a pelvic
problem that you think mightlead to a shoulder problem.
You should be able to solvethat in one or two sessions,
right?
So part of it is how thattherapist is approaching solving
something else other than thatshoulder, perhaps right.
And then also maybe theyhaven't drawn the correct line
(31:22):
from what they're trying tosolve to the shoulder issue.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Gotcha, that makes sense.
So it's just more of thecreativity of-.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Yeah, I do that all the time I'll fix.
You know I'll trace neck paindown to an ankle, right.
Well, okay, I'll fix the anklein one or two sessions and how
that weaves for the body,That'll solve that part of it,
right, and so we don't have tomake a big deal out of it from
an insurance and note-takingstandpoint.
(31:51):
Right, We'll just move on andfix that lower stuff and now
focus on the upper stuff.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Now I love that.
And then Rick, just kind ofwrap it up personally is what
would be your biggest takeawayfor people who, like, suffer
from lower back pain or chroniclower back pain and really have
tried a bunch of differentoptions?
I know obviously you're goingto say, get your book, but
what's that first step in thatbook for them to take is to do
(32:18):
the screenings and then kind offollow through, like what does
that workbook look like for them?
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Yeah, it's so simple, anthony.
I'm telling you I I'm reallybig on making things simple, uh,
because I'm not a smart,complicated kind of guy, right,
and I've worked with patients somany patients over the years.
So what it's going to look likeis I think I was trying to
count them in my head todaybecause I don't have a copy of
my book in front of me yet.
(32:43):
It's that new.
So I think I have like sixtests and they're really simple
tests.
And the other nice thing,Anthony, is that I've made
videos of the tests so that youcan make sure that you're doing
the test correctly and youunderstand what I'm talking
about.
So there's no guessing, right.
And then I have you write downwas my pain better or not better
(33:03):
?
Do I have an extension problem?
Do I not have an extensionproblem?
It's that easy.
So do you know?
It's that easy.
You don't need to haveincredible observational skills
to know what the results of thetests are.
And the other nice thing isthat each of the tests, you'll
(33:25):
know instantly their connectionto your pain.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Because if you do what I tell you to do to correct
that problem that you found inthe test, you should see an
almost immediate reduction inyour pain.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
I love it.
And then last question how canpeople find your book, purchase
it, all the good stuff?
Yeah, it's on Amazon.
Or you can go to my website,rickoldermancom.
I have some free stuff on there, and then also I have my own
programs, and then on my websitein the book section, you'll see
an Amazon link to buy it onthere.
And then also I have my homeprograms, but, uh, and then on
my website in the book section,you'll see an Amazon link to buy
it on Amazon.
But if you want to watch thevideos of the tests in the book,
you'll have to come back to mywebsite anyway.
So you might as well just learnwhere it is and and and just
(34:06):
start from there and then comeback to it.
So it's easy.
Speaker 1 (34:10):
Thank you for coming on, thank you for listening to
this episode of health, fitnessredefined.
Don't forget, hit thatsubscribe button and join us
next week as we dive deeper intothis ever-changing field and
remember fitness is medicine.
Until next time, thank you,outro Music.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!